The High-Electron Mobility Transistorat 30:

Impressive Accomplishments and Exciting Prospects

J. A. del Alamo

Microsystems Technology LaboratoriesMIT

International Conference on Compound Semiconductor Manufacturing TechnologyMay 16-19, 2011

2

Outline

• Introduction

• HEMT electronics

• Modulation-doped structures in physics

• Future prospects

The High Electron Mobility Transistor

3Mimura, JJAPL 1980

Energy band diagrams in Mimura’s patent application

(Aug. 16, 1979)

4Courtesy of Takashi Mimura (Fujitsu)

Modulation doping• High electron mobility in modulation-doped

AlGaAs/GaAs heterostructures• 2 DEG at AlGaAs/GaAs interface

5

Dingle, APL 1978Störmer, Solid St Comm 1979

Enhanced

HEMT by other name…

6

Laviron, EL 1981

Thomson-CSF: Two-Dimensional Electron Gas FET (TEGFET)

Bell Labs.: Selectively-Doped Heterojunction Transistor (SDHT)

DiLorenzo, IEDM 1982

U. Illinois: Modulation-Doped FET (MODFET)Su, EL 1982

And the winner is…

7

Data courtesy of Angie Locknar (MIT Libraries)

# papers in Compendexand Inspec databases with keyword in title, abstract or indexing terms

First HEMT IC

8

Mimura, JJAPL 1981

27-stage ring oscillatorE/D logic

“The switching delay of 17.1 psis the lowest of all the semiconductor logic technologies reported thus far.”

“HEMT technology is presenting new possibilities for high-speed low-power very-large-scale-integration.”

HEMT ICs ride Moore’s Law

9

1984: 1 Kb SRAM (7,244 HEMTs, 8.7 mm2)1984: 4 Kb SRAM (26,864 HEMTs, 21 mm2)1987: 16 Kb SRAM (107,519 HEMTs, 24 mm2)1991: 64 Kb SRAM (>462,000 HEMTs, 48 mm2)

Suzuki, JSSC 1991Watanabe, TED 1987 Abe, JSSC 1991

1 Kb SRAM 16 Kb SRAM 64 Kb SRAM

Abe, JVST1987

First HEMT LNA

10

20 GHz 4-stage HEMT LNA (1983)

Great improvement in noise characteristics as T↓

Niori, ISSCC 1983

Early commercial applications

11

First commercial HEMT product: cryogenic low-noise amplifier at Nobeyama Radio Observatory (1985)

Used to discover new interstellar molecule C6H in Taurus Molecular Cloud (1986)

Mimura, JJAP 2005

First mass market product: 0.25 μm GaAs HEMTs for LNA in DBS receiver (1987)

By 1988, world wide production of HEMT receivers reached 20 million/year

Mimura, Surf Sci 1990

12 GHz

Delta-doped pseudomorphic HEMT

12

Ketterson, EDL 1985

• Motivation: lower x in AlxGa1-xAs to avoid carrier freeze-out

• Enhanced transport in InGaAs• Large ∆Ec enhanced current

• Enabled barrier thickness scaling improved transconductance and scalability

• Enhancement of breakdown voltage

Delta dopingPseudomorphic HEMT

Chao, IEDM 1987

PHEMT ICs

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Bipolar/E-D PHEMT process

Henderson, Mantech 2007Single MOCVD growth

40 Gb/s modulator driver Tessmann, GaAs IC 1999

77 GHz transceiver

Carroll, MTT-S 2002

UMTS-LTE PA moduleChow, MTT-S 2008

Single-chip WLAN MMIC, Morkner, RFIC 2007

HEMT markets

14Data courtesy of Eric Higham (Strategy Analytics)

2009 HEMT MMIC market segmentation

(Total=$944 M)

$1.2B expectedin 2011

• Biggest market: wireless communications• Biggest applications: cell phone handsets, WLAN,

base stations and CATV

HEMTs in other material systems

15

Chen, EDL 1982

InAlAs/InGaAs on InP AlGaN/GaN

Also: AlSb/InAs, AlInSb/InSb, etc

Khan, APL 1993

SiGe/Si

Daembkes, TED 1986

High Hole Mobility Transistors

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Si/SiGeAlGaAs/GaAs

Störmer, APL 1984 Pearsall, EDL 1986

AlSbAs/GaSb

Luo, EDL 1990

Also: AlGaAs/InGaAs, InAlAs/InGaAs, AlGaSb/InGaSb, InGaN/GaN, etc

Complementary HEMT/HHMT ICs

17

AlGaAs/GaAs system

Cirillo, IEDM 1985

Also: InAlAs/InGaAs system

171,000 transistor 16-channel signal distribution system

Brown, Trans VLSI Syst 1998

0 500 10000

500

1000

1500

MIT HEMTFujitsu HEMTNGAS HEMTSNU HEMTUCSB HBTUIUC HBTPostech HBTHRL HBTETH HBT

max ff

f max

[GH

z]

fT [GHz]

300 600 700 = favg =

This work

InAlAs/InGaAs HEMTs on InP

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Uniqueness: very high mobility and velocity record frequency response at very low voltage

fT=644 GHz, fmax=681 GHz @ 0.5 V

Kim, EDL 2010

fmax=1.25 THz @ 0.8 V

Kim, IEDM 2010

Deal, MWCL 2010

5-stage 480 GHz amp (G=11.7 dB)

InAlAs/InGaAs HEMT mmw ICs

19Hirata, TMTT 2009

National Stadium

Water Cube

120-GHz-band link at Beijing Olympics(10 Gb/s over 1 km)

TV station(Japan)

JC Fuji TV boothRX, TX, PA single-chip modules: 0.1 μm InP HEMT

Live-uncompressed HD video

Courtesy of Akihiko Hirata (NTT)

InAlAs/InGaAs Metamorphic HEMTs on GaAs

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Wang, TED 1988

• Comparable performance to InP substrate• Improved manufacturability• Lower cost• Well established packaging technology

LNA NF vs. f

80 Gb/s multiplexer IC

Wurfl, GAAS 2004

LNA data courtesy of Phillip Smith (BAE Systems)

Single-stage 500 GHz LNA (G=3.3 dB)

Tessmann, CSIC 2010

Polarization doping in Nitrides

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AlGaN/GaN system uniqueness:• Strong polarization “doping” high current operation• High breakdown voltage high voltage operation• High saturation velocity high frequency operation

Breakthrough high-f PAs

Courtesy of Debdeep Jena (U. Notre Dame)

Breakthrough RF Power in GaN HEMTs

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Micovic, Cornell Conf 2010

94-95 GHz MMIC PAs:

Micovic, MTT-S 2010

Pout > 40 W/mm, over 10X GaAs! Wu, DRC 2006

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GaN HEMT in the field

Counter-IED Systems (CREW) 200 W GaN HEMT for

cellular base station Kawano, APMC 2005

100 mm GaN-on-SiC volume manufacturingPalmour, MTT-S 2010

Modulation-doped structures in physics

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Cryogenic HEMTs in radioastronomy

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• 1977: launch of Voyager 1 & 2, in mission to four planets

• 1987: AlGaAs/GaAs HEMT amplifiers delivered by GE to Very Large Array (Socorro, NM)

• 1989: Voyager 2 Neptune encounter

Courtesy of Phillip Smith(BAE Systems)

Modulation-doped structures in physics

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AlGaAs/GaAs heterostructure: perhaps the most perfect crystalline interfacial system ever fabricated

Courtesy of Loren Pfeiffer (Princeton)

Umansky, JCG 2009

μe=3.6x107 cm2/V.s at 0.36 K (ns=3x1011 cm-2)

AlAs

AlAs

GaAs

μ ↑: less disorder new physics!

Fractional quantum-Hall effect

27

Tsui, PRL 1982

Discovered in sample with μe=9x104 cm2/V.s

Integral QHE

Fractional QHE

ρ

index

New international standard for Ohm: AlGaAs/GaAs quantum-Hall bar array

28

Hall plateaus in Integral QHE determined by fundamental constants use Hall resistance to define Ohm

ρ

AlGaAs/GaAs quantum-Hall bar array:• adopted in 1990 as standard for Ohm • precision: few parts in 109!• 100 Hall bars• μe~6x105 cm2/V.s

ρ

ρ

Courtesy of Wilfrid Poirier (Laboratoire National de Métrologie et d’Essais)

Previous Ohm standard (manganin wire):

Future prospects

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New sensors

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AlGaAs/GaAs 3-axis Hall sensorsTodaro JMM 2010

InAlSb/InAsSbMicro-Hall sensorsBando, JAP 2009

AlGaAs/GaAs THz devicesKawano, Phys E 2010

AlGaN/GaN Bio sensorsNiebelschutz, PSSc 2008

GaN power electronics

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Briere, APEC 2011

GaN enables size shrink: Si-like economics:

+ = 2-3x performance/cost advantage over Si

$26B market in 2008

~10-3x

III-V CMOS

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n+ InGaAsn+

InAs quantumwell channel

vinj in InGaAs >2x higher than Si at half the voltage

III-V FETs exceed logic performance of Si at 0.5 V

$110B market in 2010!

del Alamo, IPRM 2011Kim, IEDM 2009

>2x

Epilogue:

Kroemer’s Lemma of New Technology

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“The principal applications of any sufficiently new and innovative technology have always been – and will continue to be – applications created by that technology.”

Kroemer, Rev Mod Phys 2000

Acknowledgements

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• Ray Ashoori (MIT)• Brian Bennett (NRL)• Bobby Brar (Teledyne)• P. C. Chao (BAE Systems)• Takatomo Enoki (NTT)• Augusto Gutierrez-Aitken (Northrop Grumman)• Eric Higham (Strategy Analytics)• Debdeep Jena (U. Notre Dame)• Jose Jimenez (TriQuint Semiconductor)• Marc Kastner (MIT)• James Komiak (BAE Systems)• Richard Lai (Northrop Grumman)• Angie Locknar (MIT Libraries)• Takashi Mimura (Fujitsu)• Tomas Palacios (MIT)• Loren Pfeiffer (Princeton)• Philip Smith (BAE Systems)• Tetsuya Suemitsu (Tohoku University)• Ling Xia (MIT)